The Kamloops Cancer Supportive Care Society is to looking to facilitate an InspireHealth cancer supportive care centre for Kamloops and area patients.

During a presentation to Kamloops City Council on Tuesday, it laid out its objective. Leslie Brochu is the President of the group. She says it is looking to continue to address gaps in services and develop an integrated community navigation network to make it easier for Kamloops and area patients to access Cancer Supportive Care Services.

“We’re passionate about improving talent, scenario, cancer patient outcomes and quality of life through access to cancer supportive care services, and at the same time, reduce the burden of the healthcare system. And one of the biggest benefits of that is freeing up emergency health services as cancer patients continue, continuously find themselves lack of GP, lack of oncology support when they need it the most, and they end up in emergency.”

So what exactly is cancer supportive care? “It is not treatment. Supportive care supports treatment, and improves quality of life,” said Brochu. “It improves outcomes. It is things like medical consultations with a with a cancer supportive care doctor, not your primary care physician. We all know we don’t have enough of those, and they don’t have time to provide supportive cancer care, to eat, to their patients. Some do, but certainly this is not it’s not comprehensive. It’s things like understanding your the time to spend with a doctor, to understand your diagnosis, talk about trials, talk about options, manage your symptoms, manage the pain. It’s emotional support. It is things like counseling, peer support, spirit spiritual support, how to move on, fear of recurrence, anxiety, social ostracism, all these things are reality and impact the ability of a cancer patient to achieve the best possible outcomes.”

The financial barriers of cancer treatment is something that Brochu highlighted during her presentation. “I just heard a number the other day that the average cancer patient it costs them $30,000 to to go through the cancer experience. That’s and that’s low my son was had to be treated in Edmonton. It was far more than $30,000 for us to be there for a year and a half and back and forth. And this is real suffering that people, and particularly low income people, are experiencing.”

Council will write a letter of support as the Kamloops Cancer Supportive Care Society continues to lobby and advocate for better cancer services in the Tournament Capital.